


i loathed you first

by ivyrobinson



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, princess diaries 2 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23221462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyrobinson/pseuds/ivyrobinson
Summary: the princess diaries 2 au we never knew we wanted.(reposted)
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Comments: 73
Kudos: 82





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> as with all aus a bit has been changed and there's a bit of exposition here in this prologue but a few key points: it's set in modern times so the russian revolution happens way later than it did in real life. also for purposes of this fic she was three when the romanovs were murdered, and her mother was pregnant with alexei. reposting in case anyone wanted more things to read in this time of self isolation

Anya Malevsky-Malevitch knew she was adopted. Her adoptive mother, Lily, had been upfront about that fact with her, and everyone they encountered, for so long as Anya could remember. It wasn’t her being cruel or trying to not claim her, she knew, it was just that Lily really didn’t like anyone thinking she could be old enough to be Anya’s mother. (Though, she technically was old enough.) The story went as such: when Lily had been 21 and newly widowed, she had come across a toddler Anya all alone. She said enough Russian babies had suffered after the revolution, and after all she had lost- land and people, she couldn’t help but find a kinship with this tiny orphaned Russian doll. She wasn’t very maternal but she cared and was a lot of fun.

She hadn’t thought much of her birth parents, or family, throughout the years, fifteen years earlier there had been a terrible uprising and people- including the royal family- had been slaughtered, beaten or starved. Whatever fate had awaited her parents, yet seemed to spare her, was not one to dwell on. So instead, she enjoyed her life in Paris with Lily.

Lily was sophisticated, worldly, and always the center of attention. It drove her nuts that Anya forever seemed to fall on the tomboy side of things, kicking up dirt and playing pranks with their neighbors- the Zborovskys. The daughter, Katya, was Anya’s best friend, and the son, Viktor was Anya’s...friend. (And crush though she, at eighteen, still refused to admit that. Things had been somewhat progressing lately, and she wasn’t going to jinx it by admitting anything.) When she wasn’t out causing mischief, her nose was in a book, allowing herself to transport to all sorts of other worlds and inhabit other sorts of people. Her adoptive mother always pointed out she could just go out and live those adventures instead, but Anya never saw the fun in that- in books she could be anything- in real life she just felt stilted and awkward.

So on her eighteenth birthday, she wasn’t thinking much of what her life had or could have been, when Lily dropped a rather large bombshell.

“Your grandmother is coming to visit you,” Lily said it casually, as Anya dug her spoon into a bowl of cereal and milk.

Anya frowned, trying to recall if she had ever met any of Lily’s actual family. Just legions of Russian ex-pat friends in her social circle was all Anya could recall. “Your mother?”

“No,” Lily sighed, as though she needed to brace herself. And, perhaps, she did. “Your grandmother. Your biological, paternal grandmother.”

“What?” Milk dribbled down her chin, as she spit out some of the Honey Nut Cheerios she had just put in her mouth. As far as Anya had known, and perhaps she should have asked more questions growing up, she had been some random orphan that Lily had come across. “I have family? How do you know I have family?”

Instead of answering her at first, Lily had heaved another sigh- this time at Anya’s lack of eloquence in not keeping her breakfast in her mouth before speaking, and handed her a paper towel.

“Look, Anya, there’s something I need to tell you,” Lily began gently, sitting down in the seat next to her. “Something I’ve been dreading telling you during our time together these past fifteen years.”

Oh god, was this bad? Were her parents terrible people? Was her grandmother a demon? Well, then again, while Lily wasn’t the most maternal, Anya didn’t doubt that she’d allow a demon into her life.

Was it good?

Anya gasped, “Am I wizard?”

Lily waved off her question, which to be fair was one she had been asking since she was eleven. “Darling, please.” Anya nodded, somberly, and waited. “Our meeting may not have been as random as I’ve painted over the years.”

She had started to figure that out already, based on this conversation. Anya asked in a quiet voice, “Did you know my parents?”

Lily bit her lip, and Anya knew whatever it was had to be extremely serious because lip biting was a terrible habit she had been trying to break Anya of for years.”Very well.” She paused, seemingly trying to find the right words to say. “There was a lot of blood shed during the revolution, as you well know.”

The neighborhood in Paris in which she had grown up was filled with Russian ex-pats. Little Russia the rest of the city called them unofficially. No one seemed to leave the five blocks they inhabited. Anya couldn’t tell you what a true French experience was (not even of the kissing kind), nor could she tell you what a true Russian one was. However, the neighborhood tried and the history of the White Russians were well taught in her school.

After the slaughter of the royal family, the Romanovs, the Bolsheviks had taken over. The Tsar, his wife who was pregnant at the time, and their four daughters. Destroying the beautiful history of the country, forcing the rich and poor alike to share limited space. Destroying everything it meant to be a Russian. Or so it had been told to her by the people they had forced out of the new country.

The only remaining royal was the dowager Empress of Russia. Now the reigning monarch of her own small country, just west of Finland that she had come into. She called it Nikolovia, after the son she had lost. It was originally filled with the Russian ex-pats who hadn’t fled to Paris, but over the past ten years had started coming into its own.

It was a constant thorn in the side of the Bolsheviks, but it was theorized they had reached the limit of other countries’ silence when they had murdered the royal family, and going after the dowager Empress may create an entire World War. Plus, it wasn’t as though she had any heirs that could take over. She was old, they said, and Finland and Russia could fight over the land once she had passed.

“I don’t know if I want to hear this,” Anya said, starting to get up, but Lily put a gentle hand on her to sit her back down. As she said, the fate of her parents was most likely not a kind one, and even considering any details had always made her stomach turn and sick with anxiety.

“I’m sorry, darling, but it’s a story you have to hear. It’s very important that you hear,” Lily said. “You see, it’s a story you already know.”

Every world closer to explanation, seemed to confuse Anya what. She wasn’t certain if it was because she just didn’t understand or if Lily was just having that much difficulty explaining whatever it was she was trying to explain.

“Excuse me?”

“You see, your family was killed during the revolution,” she said. Which, again, was not exactly new news to Anya, “And your grandmother brought you to me for protection. She would’ve taken you with her but it would’ve put you in too much danger. She asked me to take you on as my own, something I feel like I’ve really done over the past fifteen years.” Anya nodded in agreement automatically. “To keep you safe until you reached the age of eighteen. And I think you’re old enough to hear this now, even though no age may be a right age to hear this.”

“You’re really freaking me out,” Anya stated. Her cereal was now completely soggy and forgotten, and her birthday now the furthest thing from her mind.

Lily got up, went over and poured herself a (small) drink, and gulped it down in one shot before returning. “Your grandmother is Marie Feodorovna.”

Wait, why did that sound so very familiar?

“Your parents were Nicholas and Alix Romanov,” Lily continued on. “You are the fourth daughter, and only surviving child, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. The lost princess of Russia and only heir to Nikolovia.”

Anya shot up to her feet, jolting her cereal and splashing milk all over her allegedly royal body, “I’m what?”

And then she never received the answer to that because the world turned to black and she fell to the floor in a dead faint.

This had not been the eighteenth birthday she had been expecting at all.


	2. Chapter 1

_Approximately Five Years Later_

Anya has never quite gotten the hang of being Anastasia. The Romanovs loomed like giant ghosts over her head for most of her life. A distanced piece of history, and she had never been able to rectify that with the reality of her life. She had taken a gap year before university, spent most of it with her grandmother. Nana isn’t quite ready to let more than a few people know about her survival. The Bolsheviks’ have a long reach, and she wants to make sure they are strong enough to sustain when they present Anya as the heir. 

Then she had gone to university, where the history of the Romanovs had come up, and now everytime they were mentioned she felt a crushing weight on her chest and she couldn’t breathe. But now she is free from that. A college graduate, and look- a career already lined up!

Her life continues to reshape itself into something foreign. Her burgeoning romance with Viktor had started and ended in the span of a heartbeat, or at least that’s what it felt like, they decided they were better off as friends, but she knew the truth. Once it was revealed she was royalty (or had been or would be), things had grown awkward and he had gotten distant. Fortunately the same was not true of her friendship with Katya, who continuously found amusement and awe in Anya’s secret identity as a real life princess. She wouldn’t arrive in Nikolovia for weeks however. 

Her Nana has decided it was time to bring back Anastasia from the dead for good this time. No more rumors, no more secrets. A grand announcement of her existence and naming her the heir to the new crown.

She feels anxious about it, guts twisting up inside. She had rather enjoyed the simplicity of just getting to know her grandmother, a blood tie to her she never thought she’d ever meet. 

“Everything will work out the way it should,” Lily had told her when she had gone to her with any concerns. Lily, however, was just another cog in the machine. 

“It’s going to be weird,” she whines to Katya one night on the phone. “I grew up thinking I had all this freedom, and now I just feel all these ropes around me.” 

“Poor little princess,” Katya teases. “You’re going to be in charge, you make the rules.” 

“I’m afraid that Nana is going to secure them tight before she releases any hold on that crown,” Anya confesses, though she hates saying it. It’s not that she thinks her grandmother nefarious, just detail oriented. She has a vision of Anya’s future. 

Her friend just laughs, “Then take what liberties you can now. See a moment or an opportunity and seize it! That’s what Anya Malevsky-Malevitch would do, and I see no reason why Anastasia Romanova wouldn’t do that as well.” 

Now she thinks of that conversation whenever she felt overwhelmed or suffocated. 

She hadn’t been much of a worrier until these past few years. Nor had she been one much for deportment, etiquette or heels and now all three were natural to her. Sometimes she passes her reflection in the mirror and sees herself slipping away from it, leaving nothing but a stranger.

Her current sense of anxiety, however, is not coming from the upcoming announcement- though thinking of that longer than a second could trigger that (once she was named future Queen, she’d be that for life- but will they even believe or accept her as Anastasia Romanova?), but rather her grandmother’s pronouncement the night before about all the potential suitors she would meet.

Their families, their pros, their cons, and how she could meet them. Her twenty third birthday is in a month, and there is going to be a celebration for that, and what a wonderful opportunity that will be for her to meet these young men who could one day be her consort. 

The next boy and possibly last boy she’d ever kiss would be dictated by her grandmother and her advisors. Sometimes she wishes being a part of a family didn’t come with so much extra (and royal) baggage. 

She has barely kissed any boys, just Viktor and then in university she hadn’t kissed any because she didn’t know how to handle the whole by the way I’m secretly a murdered princess conversation that may come up in the future. And classes did take up a lot of her time. 

Whilst lost in her thoughts, she feels a sudden jolt as she hits something, and then two hands on her shoulders, steadying her and preventing her from stumbling back. 

“Sorry,” she breathes, and then makes the mistake of looking up. A mistake because when Anastasia feels trapped, Anya definitely comes out and Anya is reckless and reactionary. And she is looking up at the faces of one of the most handsome men she’d ever come across. And then he smiles in response and a dimple appears, “Can you do me a favor?”

He looks slightly confused but doesn’t stop smiling, “Sure?” 

Anya places her hands against his cheeks, lifts herself up onto her toes, and plants a kiss against his lips. A warm bolt surges through her, seeming to restart her heart and sends it into overdrive. 

She takes a breath and releases him, “Thank you.” 

He blinks rapidly in response, “Um...you’re welcome?” 

She flashes him a smile in response, and then runs back towards the rooms where she was staying. 

She can do this. She is Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, and she had been born for this. 

-

Once Anya gets home, she sheds herself from the clothes she had been wearing, showers and comes back out as a renewed person. No matter the struggle, it is worth it for the family she has discovered and these people who continue to need refuge from what Russia has become. She gets dressed for dinner and goes downstairs, only to see her grandmother doesn’t have the same new lease on life Anya had found. 

Then again, her grandmother probably doesn’t walk around and kiss total strangers. Or if she does, it isn’t a side of her that Anya has seen. 

“Anastasia,” she greets her. It was a name she used to try to get her grandmother to shorten to Anya, but her Nana will not have any of it. “Change of plans.” 

Anya’s eyebrows raise at that. Marie Feodorovna does not change plans, plans changed themselves to fit her schedule. “A change?” 

“Close your mouth,” her grandmother sighs. “Count Leopold,” this name of her relative was said with unrestrained disgust. “Is having a televised announcement. Short notice, so we won’t make it there in time so we have to watch it.” 

It’s not like he can announce he has found the lost heir to the Romanovs, so she isn’t certain how this affects her. Unless, “Do you think he found out about me?”

Her grandmother looks over at her, and then up and down, “No, he’s not that smart.” 

Anya wants to smile at that but it doesn’t seem like a wise moment to do so, instead she follows her grandmother into a large room that already has the television playing. The count looks vaguely familiar, probably from the family history that Marie has gone over with her multiple times. 

“---irresponsible of her,” he is saying, and she catches her grandmother rolling her eyes.

“What is he talking about?” She whispers, but Marie holds up a hand in response. 

“The people….” Leopold continues on, and Anya studies the screen. There are two men behind him, just out of focus. “...We need to secure our tenuous hold on this land, and so I present to you a nomination for the next ruler of Nikolovia. Someone from and for the people of our land, since Marie Fedorova does not seem fit to give us one after all these years.” He gestures to one of the men behind him, and he steps up. “I present, Dmitry Sudayev.” 

Anya gasps in response, and her grandmother clutches her arm. However, Anya isn’t gasping at the announcement- though she definitely should be, but rather because she had kissed the man who is now trying to take the throne from her.


	3. Chapter 2

“Take a breath,” Marie instructed and Anya wasn’t certain if she was talking to her or herself. Then she looked over at Anya, “Be calm, the red in your face is unbecoming.”

Ah yes, that part was most definitely addressed to Anya. 

“Can he even do that?” She asked and then braced herself because it had definitely come out as a bit high pitched. 

Her grandmother took pity on her and didn’t lecture her. She waved off the question, “Of course not. Leopold is a ridiculous man with ridiculous ideas.” She took a breath herself and stood up. “Now excuse me, I have to make some phone calls myself.”

Anya just nodded, a bit numb. She waited until Marie was fully gone from the room before standing up and sprinting to hers and reaching for her cell phone. 

“Don’t panic,” Katya told her by the way of greeting her. “Of course the Count can’t get away with this.” 

“Nana is already working on it,” Anya told her friend. “But I have another problem.”

“One other than someone trying to deposit a nobody on the throne?” Katya asked, curiosity threaded through her voice. “Gosh, your life must be exciting.”

Anya resisted the urge to point out she was a nobody they were trying to put on the throne. Royal bloodlines or not. 

“I kissed him,” she blurted out. 

“Kissed who?”

“The guy who Leopold is trying to put up,” she responded, impatiently. “Dmitry.” 

“Oh shit,” Katya said, and she could hear the laugh her friend was trying to suppress. “That is a straight up Anya Malevsky-Malevitch move.”

“That’s not helping,” Anya said between gritted teeth. 

Katya cleared her throat. “Okay, Anyok you are going to have to walk me through how you came to kiss your rival.” 

“I didn’t know he was my rival at the time,” Anya felt the need to point out. She wasn’t that bad with her poor decisions at least. “I was just thinking about how I didn’t kiss anyone through University because how do I hide who I am? Who is the right person and the right time to reveal? Who wants to deal with this baggage as a teenager? And the next person I kiss is going to be someone my Nana picks out for me and I ran into this guy and…” 

“He was hot,” Katya supplied, unhelpfully. 

“He was reasonably attractive,” Anya downplayed. She didn’t want to afford Dmitry any compliments at this moment. “And so i just kissed him.” 

“Just like that?” 

“...Yes.” 

This time Katya did not hold back her laugh. “Anastasia! Was there even any preamble or did you just walk up to this man, who is almost a foot taller than you I must point out, and just pull him down and kiss him?”

“More or less,” she mumbled. 

Yes, it was ridiculous. Even more so it was stupid and impulsive but the great secret of the Princess Anastasia, other than the secret of her survival of course, was she was very impulsive and somewhat stupid. 

“The things you do,” Katya sighed. “What did you say? What did he say?”

“I think I said thank you and ran off.”

“I love you, but you are a mess,” Katya said, rather unhelpfully. “What is your grandmother going to do?”

Anya shrugged, even though her friend could not see her. “I suppose she will announce my existence sooner rather than later. Though she hates having to change her plans for anyone.”

“Won’t it seem suspicious now?” Katya asked, “Leopold announces who he thinks the successor should be, and your grandmother suddenly pulls out a lost heir from thin air?” 

“I don’t know,” Anya said. Her head hurt thinking about how complicated and convoluted her life had become since her 18th birthday. “I mean she can prove that I am a Romanov.”

“Yes,” Katya agreed. But then added, “Because rich and powerful people aren’t able to doctor DNA tests at all when their power and fortune are at stake.” 

Anya let out a groan and she fell against her bed. 

“I need to come up with a plan,” she said. 

“No, you need to let your grandmother and her people come up with a plan,” Katya warned her. 

But the wheels in Anya’s brain were already turning. 

-

The next day, and no word from her grandmother, curiosity got to the better of Anya, and she found herself out for a walk. A very innocent walk, of course, she had no set plan. It just so happened to be in the direction of where she knew Count Leopold’s estate was. She was kept away from most of the court, given the secrecy of her existence, but she had literally studied everything about everyone else. 

Well, everyone who had mattered to her grandmother, of which this Dmitry Sudayev had not. 

So it was obviously up to Anya to do some research on this man that seemed to appear out of nowhere. 

And she meant to do it from afar, but then she found herself right in front of his path yet again. (She had no idea how that had happened!)

“Oh hey,” he greeted her, warmly. Of course, he had no idea who she was and what he was attempting to steal from her. (Or did he, her grandmother obviously had underestimated Leopold.) “It’s the kiss thief.” 

She managed to smile warmly back at him, “It’s not stolen if it would be freely given.” 

“You’re awfully certain of yourself,” he teased. 

Katya would be so disappointed in her. And what she was about to do. Any would be as well if she could predict her own actions. 

Impulse control was something that sadly could not be taught nor faked. 

“Well,” she started. “Imagine if I had known that I was kissing the future ruler of all the land.”

Dmitry looked embarrassed by that. Or at least was as good of a pretender as she was. 

Anya had been pretending to be someone else one way or another her whole life, if she really thought about it. 

“I mean that’s not exactly…” he shook his head, not finishing that intriguing sentence. “What is your name?” 

“Anya,” she said, not finding a reason to lie about that. She just didn’t need to let him know her full legal name was Anastasia. 

“Anya?” He repeated. “Is that all?” 

“All you’re going to get,” she said, coyly. “And you’re Dmitry.” 

“Right,” he said. “You would’ve heard that on the news.” 

“Nice to meet you,” she said. This time, it was an outward lie. 

“It is,” he said. Dmitry held out a hand. 

“Seems a bit backwards to be shaking hands now,” she said, stepping forwards. “Given that we’ve already kissed.” 

He rocked on his feet but did not take a step back. “You seem like a dangerous girl to know, Anya.” 

She didn’t think anyone had ever called her dangerous before. A disaster when she was younger, certainly. But never dangerous like this. 

“Well, until we meet again, Dmitry,” Anya said, lifting up on her toes and pressing a kiss against his cheek. 

Then she started to walk away. 

Katya was most certainly going to murder her when she arrived. Good thing that wouldn’t be for weeks at least and maybe this entire mess would be all over by then. 

“Anya?” Dmitry called after her. 

She took a few more steps before turning around in response. “Yes?”

“Any clue as to when or where that would be?”

She smiled at him in return. “I’ve managed to find you twice, I think you can manage to find me at least once in return.” 

Then she turned around and walked away. 

No better way to know what him and the horrible Count Leopold were up to than finding out herself. Her grandmother had wanted her to remain on the down low all these years, so why not use that to her advantage while she still could?


	4. Chapter 3

Anya had spent about a day and a half trying to figure out how she should go about figuring out what exactly her rivals were up to. Leopold has allowed the shock of his announcement to settle and disappeared from the spotlight for now. 

People didn’t really have an adverse reaction to it. They didn’t know about her survival, though she knew rumors of her survival or at least one of her siblings' survival persisted throughout the country and Russia and probably several others. Mostly conspiracy theorists. 

Her grandmother hadn’t taken people’s indifference to acceptance of this well. She was plotting, and at least Anya knew where she got that instinct from. 

Then she allowed Dmitry to find her again. She was confident that he had some interest in her, which she guessed meant she should continue on that route. 

And it had nothing to do with his height, the green flecks in his eyes or the dimple in his jaw at all. 

“I was beginning to think I had imagined you,” he said by way of greeting. “It was calling my sanity into question.” 

“I frequently call people’s sanity into question,” she admitted and that was an honest sentence. She had heard it enough from her grandmother, from Lily, from Viktor to Katya. 

He laughed, and she wondered if she may have liked him in circumstances outside of that. 

She quickly shoved that thought aside. A nice laugh and an ability to kiss well did not necessarily make someone likable. 

He glanced over at her, “I can see that.” 

“So what does someone aiming to be the leader of our humble country do in their free time?”

He looked uncomfortable by that, “I mean it’s not…” he ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.” 

That wouldn’t work but it wasn’t like she would exactly confess a plot to a near stranger either. She would have to be patient. 

“Were you originally from Russia?”

“St. Petersburg,” he confirmed. “You?”

“When I was a baby,” she admitted. The best lies stayed close to the truth. “I don’t remember it much.”

“A lot of it is not worth remembering,” he said softly. 

That’s not the picture her grandmother and adoptive mother painted. Russia had been lush with wealth and beauty.

Then again, he wasn’t much older than her- if at all, so many he only remembered the regime that took over. 

She didn’t know what to say, but she followed her instinct and reached over to grab his hand. 

Dmitry stared at it for a long moment. Then said, “Did you want to come for a drink or coffee or something?”

She felt the pressure of her hand against his and then nodded. 

-

In the back of her mind, she tried to stay well conscious of the fact she was Anastasia Romanova, daughter of the last Tsar of Russia and Marie Fedorovna’s rightful heir. She could only take this ruse so far with Dmitry, and she had to keep strict boundaries. 

Her body, however, was stubbornly determined to betray her mind. Her mouth opened easily to give his access. Her tongue worked to deepen their kisses. Her chest arched up to meet his mouth as he trailed kisses down it. Her legs fell open as his mouth met the skin of her inner thigh. Even her subconscious had betrayed her that morning by picking out a dress instead of her more everyday choice of jeans. Her brain could rationalize it as a choice made to dress befitting her station but her current position proved that easier access was its true benefit. 

She bit her lip against a whimper of anticipation, knowing she had to stop this before Dmitry could make a claim he had gone down on the future ruler. It was just difficult when every cell of her body was calling to his. Viktor had never gone down on her, and she never knew how to ask. He had never been able to get past the fact she was Anastasia. A person put on a pedestal by his royalist parents. Despite the fact he had known her only as Anya for most of their lives. She had lost her virginity being treated as though she were some breakable doll- all soft, light kisses and slow strokes, none of it able to satisfy this feral part that lived inside of her. A ferality that apparently no amount of breeding could extinguish. 

His fingers skimmed the edge of her underwear, to remove the final barrier and she knew the boundary needed to be in place. (In fact, should have been planted firmly in the ground a base or so ago.) 

Her grip loosened on his hair and she managed with as steady of a voice as she could to say, “We should stop now.” 

Anya was torn between relief at his ability to understand consent and disappointment with how easily he gave up when he stopped. 

His hair was a total mess from being under her dress and whatever her fingers had done to it. He smiled at her and leaned in to kiss her mouth. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him back in for another kiss when he started to pull away. He laughed against her lips. 

She should remember to hate him, but it was so hard to when so much of her body was pouring energy into hating her right now. 

“As long as you’re certain,” he said this time he only pulled away a fraction from her after their kiss ended. 

“I’m not,” she admitted and she wasn’t even certain if she was even playing a part at this point. Apparently she was terrible at subterfuge. Or way too good at it. “But I have to go home to my family for dinner.” 

This was a lie, it was entirely too early for her grandmother to eat and rarely did the two of them done together. 

“And where is that?” 

She laughed, and moved to kiss him on the tip of the nose before standing up. She ignored her own discomfort and building frustration, “Nice try.” 

“You’re really not going to tell me where you live?” Dmitry stayed seated. 

She shrugged stepping away from him, “You think I’m mysterious and I enjoy that.” 

“That can easily morph into thinking you’re strange,” he countered. 

“A chance I’m willing to take,” Anya said. “Close your eyes and count to ten so you can’t see where I go.” 

He just rolled his eyes in return. “Until we meet again, Anya.” 

She ran the opposite direction of where she needed to go, taking a more complicated route back home. 

If she were smart, they wouldn’t meet again. 

-

When Anya arrived home, she went straight to her bedroom. Her skin still felt warm, her heart rate hadn’t gone down, and her lips still felt swollen from Dmitry’s kisses. She opened her drawers looking for the thing Lily had gotten her as a joke when she was going off to university and her and Viktor had broken up. Her hand had wrapped around it but she hadn’t quite pulled it out when her grandmother entered her room without a knock. She dropped it as though it were on fire and shoved her drawer closed again. 

“Forgive the intrusion, Anastasia,” her grandmother greeted her. “I was looking for you earlier but was told you had gone out.”

“For a walk,” she answered quickly. Then pointed towards her head, “To clear my head.”

“I see,” Marie said, and moved to sit on Anya’s bed. Then waited. 

And waited. 

Oh right. Anya sat down on the bed, crossing her legs and fiddling with her skirt, as though there was some telltale sign left behind of what she had done earlier on her so-called walk. 

“You were looking for me?” Anya prompted her grandmother. 

“Yes,” her grandmother reached over to put Anya’s hands in hers. “I know Leopold’s announcement with that terrible boy must have come as a terrible shock to you. But I don’t want you to spend a second concerning yourself with it.”

Well, this speech came a little late. 

Anya opened her mouth, not to confess- dear God no- but to protest that she shouldn’t be involved. After all, she had lived a relatively normal life- as far as she could actually remember- before Lily had dropped the you’re a Romanov and also the heir to a small country. It had completely altered the course of her life, changed the course for most of her relationships and now it was being threatened. Of course she could concern herself with it. 

However, her grandmother held up a hand to interrupt her before she could even begin. “My people are already on it, Nastya. Please, stop any worrying that may have started already. Let my people take care of this for us.” 

“It sounds like you’re going to take out a hit out on cousin Leopold and Dmitry,” Anya mumbled. 

Marie looked unimpressed. “Control that...humor of yours, Anastasia. It’s unbecoming in a ruler.” 

So was everything else about her. 

But she bit her tongue and nodded dutifully. Then waited for her grandmother to leave before unbecomingly flopping back on her bed. 

Anya had many flaws that had been trained out of her the past five years. Unfortunately, however, her stubbornness was not one of them. And she could not be so easily swayed from the path she had set herself on. 

She just had to make sure absolutely no one found out what she was up to until she figured out what Dmitry was up to. And stopped whatever it was that he and Leopold were planning.


	5. Chapter 4

Anya runs into Dmitry when she least expects it. It catches her off guard and unprepared. She’s not certain why she’s surprised by it, the first time she ever ran into him hadn’t been planned. But she’s dressed in an outfit picked out by her grandmother and her advisors. It’s a pale pink and falls midway down her shins, and she’s wearing matching shoes and her hair tightened into a nearly painful French braid. 

She’s never been more Anastasia in her life, and seeing Dmitry who only knows her as Anya throws her off. 

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” he comments after having done a double take at her. She had almost tried to get away without him seeing her, but their eyes had met and had given her away. “Are you a politician’s daughter?”

Anya blinks, afraid she had somehow been caught. Then she remembers her outfit and sees the teasing look in his eye. “Worse- my mother’s in Junior League and is trying to drag me into it.”

She doesn’t remember her biological mother, but from the stories she’s heard of Alix, it seems like the sort of thing she would do. These people are more historical figures than real to her. No memory of her own to rely on. 

She tries to imagine Lily in the Junior League and stops herself from laughing out loud. 

Dmitry reaches over and tucks a strand that has escaped behind her ear, “I suppose we all have to do a little pretending from someone.” 

Anya kind of hates how well he knows her without actually knowing her. 

“And what do you pretend?” She asks, out of genuine curiosity before recalling that was exactly the sort of information about him she should be looking for.

She reaches behind her head to try to unravel the braid. She cannot be Anastasia around him, it feels too weird. 

“Too many things, it seems,” he answers in his typical cryptic way. Dmitry maneuvers her around so he can undo her hair for her. 

Her hair is now loose and free around her shoulders. She feels a little bit more like herself again, though she hasn’t been sure who herself was since the morning of her eighteenth birthday. 

“One day you’re going to give me a real answer to that,” she says and she leans against a nearby tree. 

In some ways, she’s spoiled, asking for something she will never give to him. 

“I’d like to,” he promises and she reaches out to pull him near. 

Her heels give her some height but never enough so she drags his face down to hers to kiss him. 

The streets are empty around them, this part of town seems like another country for all her grandmother and their people knew, and the tree blocks them from any passerbys that may come. 

Still, she’s reckless. She may be anonymous now, but any day that could change and she was collecting more skeletons in her closet with every passing day. 

Her life has been so dull for so long. She can’t resist when sparks ignite within her. 

Dmitry lifts her up, and her heels fall to the ground. She’s losing the Anastasia persona with every kiss, every caress and every gasp of air taken between them. 

Her legs wrap around his waist, her hands on his shoulders, and the trunk of the tree behind her, keeping her position. One hand of his bunches her skirt to her hips, the other on her pantyhose covered thigh. 

It’s thin material but it’s still not enough to satisfy the need to feel his skin against hers. 

Anya loses herself when she’s around them, and she’s both aware of it and can’t bring herself to care as his tongue slides over hers. 

She tries the trick that had gotten her through her worst impulses in college: how would these decisions be retold in history books to be taught later on? 

Anastasia Romanova, the last remaining Romanov, also has the distinction of being the only Grand Duchess and Queen to get fucked against a tree while pretending to be the person she originally thought she was. 

It’s an insane enough thought that it causes her to giggle into his mouth. 

He pulls away, his expression both amused and confused. 

“Sorry,” she apologizes and she presses a kiss against the dimple in his cheek. It leaves a shiny peachy mark against his skin. “This is just a ridiculous scenario.”

It should also be a warning to her that she doesn’t even need to include her secret identity for the whole making out in public against a tree thing for it to be ridiculous. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, his forehead resting against hers. “Wanna stop?” 

Her lips are already grazing against the skin of his neck, “No.”

Sometimes Anya wishes she could be honest with him in more ways than just with her body. 

Dmitry laughs this time, and then she moves her mouth back to his. She’s not capturing his secrets, like initially planned but she can feel him feeding her parts of his soul. 

She should stop them, but she’s like a teenager with an alarm clock that keeps hitting the snooze button. Just five more minutes, one more kiss, just one more…

In the end, it’s the sound of Dmitry’s going off that stops them. The noise startles them apart, and he rests his forehead against the bark after reading the caller id. 

“Not a good call?” She asks. 

He makes a noncommittal noise in return, and presses a soft kiss to her lips, before untangling them. “Just one I can’t ignore.” 

Her feet are back on the ground, but her legs don’t feel all that steady. She reaches down to pull her heels back on. When she stands back up Dmitry is smiling fondly at her. There are questions she should be asking now, but she fears the answers. 

He reaches over and pulls a fallen leaf from her hair, “You look like a wood nymph.” 

“Careful,” she manages to tease. “You’re getting close to my secret.” 

Dmitry looks serious for a moment, “I doubt that.” His hand is still on his phone, making a noise now that signifies voicemail. He turns her slightly to brush off the back of her dress. “We may have ruined the back of your dress.” 

She turns her head, though she can’t actually see the back of it at all. She can just imagine the moss stains and bits of bark in it though. “Oh, my family is going to kill me.”

This was honest, too. She isn’t quite certain how to explain away that. 

“Here,” Dmitry offers, shrugging off his jacket and pulling keys and wallet from the front pocket to his pants pocket. He pulls the jacket onto her. “Borrow this, it’ll hide the ruined part.” 

“Thanks,” she says softly. She kisses him on the cheek. “Go make your phone call.” 

“I can walk you home,” he offers and she shakes her head. 

That will not work for either of them, and she’ll just end up in this even deeper. 

-

Anya manages to slip back to her rooms, unseen, and she sets Dmitry’s jacket down with care on her chair before shedding her ruined dress and pantyhose (they did not hold up well with her legs twisted around him not against the grip he had held on them) and she stuffs them in a bag before throwing them in the trash. 

She takes a long and stress relieving bath. When she’s out, she looks fresh. No longer so severely the heiress to the Romanovs, but not quite Anya either. She would like to keep herself somewhere in between but that’s not something she has yet to manage. 

She throws on a soft pajama set, even though it’s a bit too early for it and steps back into her room to find someone entering it. 

“Lily!” She gasps and launches herself into her foster mother’s arms. 

“Darling,” she gives Anya a tight squeeze before stepping out of the embrace. “I’ve heard you’ve gotten yourself in a spot of trouble.” 

For the second time today, Anya wonders if she’s been found out. Then she remembers the initial trouble that had begun all this. 

“Nana says she’s taking care of it,” Anya attempts to say breezily. Like someone who had no concerns and would let the people in charge do what they must. 

Lily doesn’t buy it for a second. She might not have been the most maternal caretaker, but she has always been observant. And no one knows her better. 

“Nastya, you’ve never left anything up to anyone else since the moment I met you,” Lily responds. “Not when you were three, and certainly not when you were twenty three.” 

“I don’t know anyone here,” Anya tells her, innocently. “Who could I go to?” 

Lily is unmoved by this defense, “You’ve always been a resourceful girl. I’m sure you could come up with something.” There is a compliment in there somewhere, Anya is sure. “How is your grandmother taking the drama?”

Anya shrugs, happy to have the conversation turn away from what she would or wouldn’t do. “She’s annoyed. She doesn’t like having to change her plans.” 

“Leopold’s always been a bastard,” she says plainly. “Underestimating a nuisance may have been a mistake.” Lily lights a cigarette, opening one of Anya’s windows and standing near it. “What do we know of the boy?”

“Not much,” she says because the things she does know about him are not things befitting a daughter to tell her mother. “Just a name. Dmitry.” 

“Ah, a Russian named Dmitry,” Lily says dryly. “That narrows it down. Are we certain he’s not just an actor Leo hired to play a part?”

Anya shrugs, “We don’t seem certain of much these days. Katya is worried that people will now think I’ve been hired to pose as Anastasia to thwart Leo’s scheme.” 

This does not seem to concern Lily, who says, “There is and always will be conspiracy theories about your survival and existence, Nastya.”

Her existence used to not be such a complicated mess. Or it had been, and she had been so blissfully unaware of it. 

“We will see how my grandmother wants to take it,” Anya says, tilting her chin up. 

Lily smiles softly and a bit sadly. “Remember, above all else, this is your life and you have a hand in steering the course.” It didn’t feel that way. She eyes the jacket on the chair speculatively. “Until then enjoy your distractions, darling.” 

She gives Anya an air kiss as she leaves the room. 

Anya goes over to the window to close it. She picks up Dmitry’s jacket, wondering if she should store it in her closet, hiding it away from plain sight. She pulls it on a hanger when a letter falls out of it. 

She hangs the jacket but leans down to pick up the paper, unfolding it to read it. 

_Well, shit._


	6. Chapter 5

Anya reads the letter twice just to make sure what she's reading is what she’s reading. Though, if nothing else, her reading comprehension has always been excellent. She folds it carefully and places it back in the inside pocket of Dmitry’s jacket, unsure what she wants to do with it. 

She chews on her thumbnail, a bad habit she had dropped way before her eighteenth birthday but apparently comes back in times of extreme stress. 

She has to rethink everything now. Not that she has done much thinking up to this point. 

“I hope you enjoyed your surprise,” a voice comes from her doorway.

Anya startles, closing the closet door. 

She recovers and gives her best future queen smile to her grandmother, “You brought Lily here?”

She’s not surprised, if she thinks about it. 

“I did,” her grandmother says, placing her hands on Anya’s shoulders. “She’s been such a companion to you over these last years, I thought you could use a friend during this Leopold mess.” 

Marie is so reluctant to apply family to Anya that is not a ghost. Lily had been like a mother to Anya, an actual mother to her, sacrificing her adulthood to raising a ticking time bomb. 

Anya is now older than Lily was when she took her in and she can’t imagine taking in or raising a child of her own, let alone someone else’s. 

“Thank you,” Anya says, “How goes the Leopold mess?”

Marie sighs, “Not as well as I would like. He has more supporters than I would have imagined.” 

She wonders how much she’s not told. 

“They must not know him,” Anya offers. 

“They do,” Marie responds. “It’s why he’s hiding behind a handsome young man.”

Anya stills, she is not built for lies. No matter how many she’s been building lately. “And what do we know of him?” 

“Not enough,” Marie tells her. “But never you mind that. We’ve got everything well in hand, dear.”

Right. Sit and wait. Instructions she had been given as a toddler, still given twenty years later. She wonders how she is expected to rule when she’s not included in anything. 

When she was in college, she understood it. The secrecy of her survival. But she’s twenty three now, and everything she’s been groomed for is being threatened and she’s still being told to sit and wait, and look pretty. 

Even if she’s announced as the rightful heir, who would want her as a ruler?

“I trust you,” she says, keeping her smile up. 

Her grandmother gives her a kiss on her cheek. Anya loves these moments, even if she can’t fully grasp the extent of the baggage that accompany them. 

Then she’s left alone in her room. 

-

Anya wakes up with good intentions. She pulls on a pair of jeans and a well worn T-shirt. Then she slips on Dmitry’s jacket and leaves the building undetected. The air is crisp and the morning is quiet as she retraces her path. She’s only been there once before, but she’s confident in where she’s going. 

She knocks on the door, before she can lose her nerve. (She has a lot of it, but eventually she may lose it and who knows what moment that will be.) Her plan is simple: confront Dmitry on the information she’s come across, and possibly confess her own secrets. 

Dmitry does not look surprised by her appearance, but says, “You didn’t have to rush me back my jacket.” 

“Maybe I just wanted to see you,” she says and sounds a bit breathless. 

He indulges her and kisses her in greeting, “It looks good on you.” 

“A bit big,” she points out, opening her arms to show how they hang off the ends of her hands. 

“You are a bit tiny,” he agrees. He’s a good half a foot or so taller than her. “Did your dress pass the test?” 

“Made it in undetected and is now buried in the trash,” she assures him. He finds her hand under the fabric and takes it, leading her into the kitchen. 

“Let me make you breakfast,” he offers. “Since I owe you a dress.”

“I hated the dress,” she confesses. “But I will always accept breakfast.”

Anya’s delaying the inevitable but the pancakes he’s making do smell delicious and she did not stop for food before leaving this morning. 

He places a plate before her and she finally takes off the jacket and hands it back to him. 

“Thank you,” he says, throwing it over the chair. “I knew you’d bring it back.” 

She takes a bite of the pancake to distract the fact he trusts her. She’s herself again after she swallows, “Favorite jacket?”

“Something like that,” he says. She wonders if he will just leave it cryptic as he has been, but then he adds, “It belonged to my father.” 

“Oh,” she says. She wonders if she possesses anything of her parents. Her inheritance isn’t even theirs, but a new lineage created by her grandmother rather than the old, hundreds of years one from Russia. She doesn’t even have their name, really. Not one she is allowed to use yet. “What happened to your father?”

The regime change made orphans out of so many of them. The sentimentality of the jacket and tone suggests Dmitry’s father’s fate was similar. 

“He died in a labor camp,” he says. “He was neither a fan of the old or new regime.”

It occurs to her then she may have never met anyone that isn’t a royalist before. 

“Would he be a fan of you going for the crown?” She asks. 

“No,” he says, setting down his fork. Brown eyes looking straight at her. “Are you going to ask about the letter?”

She bites her lip, it’s sticky and sweet, “You left the letter for me to find.”

It’s really not a question at this point. 

“Do you think I leave important documents in my pocket to forget and hand off my jacket to the first pretty girl I see?” He asks, his tone light. 

Fair enough question. She is careless enough for the both of them. 

“So Leopold is blackmailing you,” Anya states simply. 

“When my father died, that was the hint that Russia was not healing or getting better, as they claimed,” Dmitry explains. “So I made it my goal to escape.” 

“Why here?”

Many escaped to Paris initially. Where Anya herself was hidden away for so many years. 

“It’s the easiest place to escape to,” Dmitry days with a shrug, I have a friend who has contacts and we escaped together. It’s harder now, with the peace treaties the Empress has signed. You get sent back to Russia now, when caught.”

“How is that line drawn?”

She has always been taught about the dream of the new hope of Russia. All the people who managed to escape and build a new life echoing the old to celebrate. She always knows there’s another side to life, but rarely is she taught it. 

“Money,” he responds. “If you have it, you don’t get caught.” 

She wonders how she would handle such a thing. Russia, angry and powerful, and ready to seize power back from the Empress. 

She doesn’t know. But she can’t see turning her back on people in need. 

“So what’s his plan?” This time, she just asks it outright. 

“Well, he’s kind of stupid,” Dmitry says, annoyance laced in his voice. Probably at having got caught by him. “He thought that positioning someone like me to take over would force Marie’s hand into naming him her heir.” 

Which wouldn’t happen. With or without Anastasia. 

“And how is that working out for him?” She asks this carefully, since she already knows the answer. 

“It’s made him paranoid,” he leans forward, “He’s starting to think those rumors about Anastasia are true.” 

Anya breaks his gaze. She should tell him. But his own life is on the line and she doesn’t know if she can trust him with her secret, even as he trusts her with his. 

“Anastasia rumors?”

“Anastasia, Olga, Alexei, etc,” he says with a wave of his hand. “It’s always one of the children or another. People insist there’s one or more survivors.” 

“Impossible though,” she mumbles. She’s not sure why. This will all be revealed at some point but she can’t bring herself to say the words. 

I am Anastasia Romanova. 

Her real secret is that she doesn’t want to be. 

“Exactly,” Dmitry agrees, leaning back. “But since you know my biggest secret, can I at least have your last name?” 

She lets out a laugh, nervously. Then says, “Malevsky-Malevitch.”

It feels like a mistake as soon as she says it but she doesn’t want to focus on political intrigue or her family’s tragic history at the moment. 

“That’s a mouthful,” Dmitry comments. 

“You see why I don’t give it out now?” She says. “And we will get out of Leopold’s convoluted plans and keep you out of Russia.” 

He merely arches an eyebrow in return, “Your mother has that sort of pull in Junior League.”

Well, no. But Anya herself has that sort of power and with all her lies behind her she at least owes it to him to use it. 

“You’d be surprised by the sort of pull my family has,” she says softly. Then she pushes away her empty breakfast plate and walks over to him to kiss him.


	7. Chapter 6

Despite the way her heartbeat quickens, and her breath shortens, there’s something soothing about kissing Dmitry. He feels like home, but no home Anya has actually ever known. He tastes of syrup and coffee, and is everything about herself she wishes were true. 

He pulls her onto his lap, “I’m starting to think you want me just for my body.” 

She laughs and nuzzles her nose against his neck, “You might not be wrong.”

Anya wants every part of him. Selfishly. 

Dmitry kisses her forehead, and it’s sweet and she can feel his confidence in who he is through the gesture. She wonders if she has ever felt such confidence regarding anything in her life. 

(She has.)

“The pancakes did also help add to your appeal,” she adds, tilting her head up to kiss along his jaw. 

She can feel him smile, “That was all a part of my plan.” 

Anya pulls away so she can see his face, “And the next part of your plan?”

He maneuvers her off his lap so he can stand up, and then pulls her back towards him, “Whatever you permit.”

That is exactly what he should not say, because what she will permit currently has no limits. At least not when it comes to him. 

She stands on the tips of her toes anyway and kisses him anyway. 

“You’re very tall,” she says, the tips of her fingers brushing against the back of his neck. 

“I think you’re just very short,” he says with a laugh, and she hooks her legs behind his back as he lifts her. 

It’s a little bit of both. 

Anya leans in, pulling on his lower lip with her teeth, “Where’s your bed?”

He laughs at her boldness, but doesn’t seem surprised by it and walks them a few feet into a small bedroom. She wishes she could be as forward in other aspects of her life as she is with him. 

Dmitry drops her softly on the bed, and she reaches over and tugs on his shirt to pull him back down to her. The only thing she really needs is this moment. 

Luckily for her, his lips are pliant, and he crawls over, his body suspended above hers. 

“You must really like my pancakes,” he teases, his lips against the pulse point of her throat. 

She sighs, her fingers threading through his hair, “I really like you.” 

Anya enjoys this small bit of honesty. 

His lips are on hers again. Her hands slip under his shirt, while he works on the button of her jeans. She lifts her hips up as he pulls them down, and she wishes she hadn’t been in denial that morning and gone for something a bit looser and easier when she left that morning. 

Once she’s freed from her jeans, she reaches over to pull on his T-shirt. He moves her hands away, and pulls his T-shirt up and off. 

“I really like you too,” he returns, bending down to kiss her again. 

He’s open and earnest about it, and she believes him in a way she’s never believed anyone else before. And she’s never felt more like herself as his fingers dance against her skin.

-

Afterwards, Dmitry buries his face in her hair. She reaches over and pats him on the cheek. He smiles against her shoulder. She wonders how long she can stay here in this bed, in this moment. He throws his arm around her waist, helping her with her desire to not move. 

It’s mid-morning but she decides life can wait a little while longer and threads her fingers around his. She kisses his forehead and lets herself fall back asleep. 

Anya awakens sometime later, half from the sound of the knock on the door and half from the motion of Dmitry rolling away from her. He murmurs something against her cheek, kissing it before getting up, pulling on his pants and shirt again as he leaves. 

She spies the time on the clock on the nightstand and it’s early afternoon. She needs to get back to her rooms, to her life. She also needs to figure out how to untangle this mess she has gotten herself into, and how to confess you’re a dead princess to someone who is being blackmailed to try to take her rightful place in government.

It’s enough to give hers a headache, and get her to get out of Dmitry’s bed. She pulls her hair back into a messy ponytail. She pulls on her clothes again, not bothering to check her reflection. She is not sure how to mask what she’s been up to, but many of her grandmother’s people look right through her anyway. The only real concern is Lily, who had already assumed Anya was seeing someone from the jacket in her room. She just didn’t need to know who it was yet.

She peeks out to find an older man out there with Dmitry. Dmitry doesn’t look immediately concerned or upset over their meeting. She takes that to mean that he is not involved in Leopold’s scheme, and it’s safe for her to come out fully. 

The man glances over at her and then back to Dmitry, “And is this part of the plan as well, Dmitry?”

“No, this is a friend,” Dmitry tells him and she tries not to wince when he adds, “Unrelated to all of this.” 

The older man looks dubious over this, and he’s not wrong to. She is absolutely in the thick of this. Just Dmitry doesn’t know, and now doesn’t seem like a good time to mention it. Just like every other moment before never seemed like a good time to mention it. 

“Anya,” Dmitry reaches over and takes her hand, pulling her over to him. “This is an old friend, Vlad Popov.” 

She reaches over with her free hand and shakes it. Vlad. She feels as though she’s heard stories of him before. 

“Forgive me, child,” Vlad says. “I didn’t catch your name.” 

“Anya,” she responds. There’s a beat after that, of expectation. Oh right, last name. She may as well, as she had already given one to Dmitry. One that is not a lie, but is not really the truth either. “Malevsky-Malevitch.”

Vlad drops her hand, and steps back, looking haunted. “Malevsky-Malevitch? Are you related to Lily?”

It’s her turn to look shaken. People knew her adoptive mother back in Russia, she is certain but she disappeared into France with Anya twenty years earlier. Purposefully not keeping contact with anyone but Marie and her people. Vlad is not one of Marie’s people, because she would’ve known of it by now. 

“You know my mother?” She asks. 

At the same time Dmitry is asking, “She’s that Lily?”

Dmitry and Anya look at each other in blinking confusion. Russia is so small for a country that is so big. 

“Lily is...your mother?” Vlad asks, ignoring Dmitry’s question. At Anya’s nod.”That can’t be, she did not have any children of her own.”

He seems to be working something out. He’s most likely a man who had fallen in love with her mother back in the old country. Lily has no shortage of broken hearts in her past. 

“I was adopted,” she’s quick to say, lest he is concerned with a belated paternity test. 

If anything, Vlad pales even more at that. Dmitry is splitting his attention over looking confused and concerned over his friend and confused over her.

Anya knows her own secrets, but does not know this man so she just mirrors Dmitry’s confusion back at him. 

Vlad addresses Dmitry, “What have you done?” 

“Are you this upset about me dating your ex girlfriend’s daughter?” Dmitry asks, the question infused with both confusion and gentleness. 

He lets out a harsh laugh, “So you don’t know? I don’t know if that makes this better or worse.” 

The last part is said mostly to himself. 

Dmitry glances over at her, almost apologetic for his friend’s mumblings. 

Anxiety twists through Anya’s system because Vlad is reacting like he knows something about her and Lily and there’s only one thing to know about them. About her. But she was given a list of people who had been made aware of Anastasia Romanova’s survival and she knows he is not on that list. 

That list is the first thing she memorized five years ago. 

“Know what?” Dmitry drops Anya’s hand to step forward to Vlad. 

Anya wants to flee but she’s rather frozen in place because she does not know what Vlad is actually going to say, as he cannot possibly say the truth. 

“Lily did take in a child twenty years ago,” Vlad begins, and Anya feels color drain from her body. “Which means this girl is Anastasia Romanova.” 

“You’re crazy,” Dmitry automatically tells his old friend.

Anya can’t help the words from slipping out, “How do you know that?”

Dmitry’s attention snaps to her. He looks like he’s looking at a ghost. Or a stranger. She supposes she is one. Or both.


	8. Chapter 7

Anya’s face changes before him. It looks the same, Dmitry knows that on some level, but after Vlad’s ridiculous announcement, and her response, it shifts and suddenly everything clicks into place. Of course Anya is Anastasia Romanova. How could he have been so stupid?

It’s all right there in the heart shaped face of the fallen Tsarina and the clear blue eyes of the slain Tsar. She is every inch a Romanov. There’s no way the line simply could die out. 

The will of the imperial family has never to simply go into the night. 

He was five when the murders happened. He has a vague recollection of hearing about it, mostly spoken in hushed whispers between his parents. He lost mother soon after that, so death and grief of that time is tied more to her memory than to that of a distance figure of authority. 

The Sudayevs have never cared much for authority, and as much as his father rallied against imperial rule, he hates the Bolsheviks more. We knew who the royals were, his father would say, the Bolsheviks merely claim to be one of us while stripping us further of our liberty. 

Dmitry has never had much respect for any of the Russian rulers he had lived under. 

The only reason he ended up here is because of Vlad. He had to escape Russia, and Nikolevia is the most convenient exit. He needs to find Lily, Vlad says. Isn’t Lily in Paris? Dmitry had asked, and Vlad had shook his head. If she is, it’s not for much longer and this is where we need to go. 

It had not been an easy escape, and he and Vlad had gotten separated, but Dmitry had made it here. He had attempted to keep a low profile, and then Leopold had caught him. 

And now Anya. Anastasia. 

Right now, she’s not even looking at him, or acknowledging him in the room. She’s still looking at Vlad with the horror of her existence being known to him. 

Dmitry’s first instinct is to reach out and steady her with his hands, but he holds his own. The instinct is reserved for Anya, and he has no idea who Anastasia is. 

“Lily and I were close once,” Vlad answers her, finally. “You were just a little thing back then, still are. I knew her before then, as well. Back when she was a wife, before she was a widow, and before she was asked to take you in. And she told me.” 

“You’re not on the list,” her gaze flickers to Dmitry, as though they were a team, but quickly looks away again as though only now remembering the awkwardness of her lies. “I know who was told of my existence and you’re not on it.” 

“Do you think Lily would admit to Marie she broke a rule and told someone else?” Vlad asks her. He gestures between the two of them, “How did this happen?” 

“She’s trying to figure out Leopold’s scheme,” Dmitry speaks up, because clearly that is what she is up to. 

Anya doesn’t contradict him. 

Vlad is still looking at them as though he is expecting a further explanation, but one is not forthcoming. 

“I assume this isn’t Marie’s idea,” Vlad says, a statement more than a question. 

Anya shakes her head. Her face is flushed, and her lips are still swollen from his kisses, and there’s a mark from his mouth peeking out from under her collar. 

It’s hard to imagine her anything but Anya, and his brain couldn’t quite connect that she was this mythical figure. The lost princess of Russian. 

Had he not just denied the possibility of her survival just before?

“I still don’t understand who you are,” she tells him, her chin up now. It’s a little easier to see the pedigree in her now. “I need to speak to Dmitry.”

He’s not certain she’s really in the position to be making demands, but he also has a lot of questions he needs answers for. 

Vlad looks ready to argue, and Anya looks ready to stand her ground so they both look to him. The tie breaker. 

He nods to Vlad, “Give us a moment. Or a few.”

Vlad mumbles something about them already having a few too many moments, but he relents and disappears from the apartment. 

Once alone, he turns to her and asks, “What the fuck, Anya?”

He can’t bring himself to call her Anastasia, it’s too bizarre of a concept still. 

She opens her mouth, her gaze falling somewhere closer to his cheek than his eyes, “I—“

Dmitry waves it off, “How are you alive? Why- no, why am I in the middle of this bullshit imperial family political drama?” 

“Because Leopold’s a dick?” she offers with a small shrug, before deflating. “I actually don’t know I’ve never met him.” 

His hand reaches out to touch her shoulder, but pulls back at the last moment, so it just brushes against her shirt instead.

A lot of this doesn’t make sense. 

“Did they hire you?” 

At this point he’s not putting much past the Queen and her relatives to hire an Anastasia lookalike to stop Leopold from taking over the crown. After all, she showed up right before Leopold made his announcement. 

Even with Vlad’s announcement...who knew what he knew or what was going on. What the fuck?

Anya pulls back, offended. “No they just put me in hiding for fifteen years and dropped a bombshell on my eighteenth birthday.”

Her tone is sarcastic and it’s hard to tell if it’s just that or if there is truth to what she’s saying.

“And you’ve been where exactly for the past five years?” He asks. 

“College,” she says, worrying her lower lip. She’s pacing slightly with little steps back and forth. Again, he has to stop himself from reaching out to steady her. “Nana did not want to roll me out unpolished and untrained.” 

There’s something bizarrely charming about her referring to the former empress of Russia and the current Queen as Nana. He pushes down those feelings though to focus. 

He’s angry and frustrated and he feels it more at himself than her or even her family, and that just elevates it more. 

“And then you guys found out about Leopold’s scheme,” he says flatly. 

She stops her pacing, “Yeah, when everyone else did. At the press conference.” 

That does not make any sense to him. “But you kissed me before that.” 

Her eyes finally met his, “I wanted to.” 

Dmitry doesn’t even have time to process whether or not he believes her, or even to register who makes the first move, just that their lips are together again. Her fingers curled in his hair, his hands against the skin of her waist. 

He should be demanding answers and getting information, or at least untangling himself from this mess he finds himself in with what’s left of the imperial family. 

Instead he has Anastasia Romanova pressed up against the wall, drinking from her lips as though it was an actual life source keeping his heart beating. Her fingernails pressing against the skin of his neck, marking him. 

He does not want to be branded by these politics. But it’s difficult to think of her as anything but the flesh and blood she is against him right now. 

He is so fucked. 

They’re both breathing hard when they pull away. 

“We can’t…” he breathes. There are so many endings to that sentence he can’t bring himself to complete. 

“I know,” she says but she says it against the skin of his neck. 

He reaches below, and she helps him with the unbuckling of her jeans and pushing them down. Her legs are around him. 

Her head rolls forward, resting against his collar bone, her breath coming in pants, “I can tell you almost anything.” 

“Why should I believe you?”

Anya’s hands are pushing against the waistline of his pants, “Because you can ruin me.” 

It would most likely be true, if she hadn’t already ruined him first.

-

Afterwards, Dmitry just hates himself more, and his inability to get out of his current circumstances. In the past, he was so good at getting himself out of jams, and while this was a little bit more complicated than usual, he had a plan. And he had gotten so distracted. That distraction is currently on his couch in a shirt and underwear, her hand twisted in his shirt, as he kisses her. 

“We can’t keep trying to fuck our way out of this one,” he tells her, while not doing anything to help avoid it.

“I know,” she sighs, nuzzling her nose against his cheek, and sliding up on the sofa so she could sit up. “I really didn’t know who I was until I was eighteen.” 

His hand is resting on the bottom part of her leg, “Happy Birthday, you’re secretly a murdered Princess?” 

“More or less that’s exactly how Lily laid it out for me,” she says. “I was raised in Paris. I knew I was adopted but just thought I had lost my parents during the whole...thing.” 

“That’s messed up,” Dmitry says, reaching over, his fingers brushing against her cheek.

“I don’t need pity,” she says, with a roll of her eyes, but leans into his touch. “But I was told I had a grandmother who was still alive, and all this responsibility and this role.” 

“And remain a secret.” 

Anya scrunches her nose at that, “And remain a secret, until the time is right.”

“And then Leopold messed that all up,” he adds.

“And…” She trails off, “I think I messed it up.”

“Because of me?”

“I’m not throwing over my family’s legacy and country for a boy,” she tells him, reaching over to tap his nose. “I don’t know, Dima, I just wanted a family. A connection. And it was fine as a theoretical, but now it all comes with….” She waves her hand around. “An entire country, and scheming and responsibilities of people’s lives, and it’s just a lot to process every day.” 

“And where do I come into all of this?” 

She gives him a wobbly smile, “I first kissed you, because it was becoming very real how every decision in my life will be determined by my grandmother and her advisors, and I just wanted to kiss a boy of my choosing one last time. And that sounds stupid.” 

“As the boy of your choosing,” he says, and he pulls her in for a soft kiss. “I don’t find it that stupid.” 

“And then the announcement happened, and I was just told to sit and wait,” she continues on. “Which I don’t do well at all, no matter how much they try to train the flaws out of me.”

Dmitry smiles, “I can see that in you.” 

“So I wanted to find out on my own, and we already had the connection of the kiss,” Anya says. “And I wasn’t really trying to seduce you, but then I got seduced by you and the way I got to feel like myself again. And I haven’t felt like that since I was 17, except it was more because I didn’t even know who I was at 17 and I’m just a fucking disaster.” 

He could relate to that unfortunately. “So what are you going to do now?” 

“What I said I’d do,” she tells him. “Get you out of your mess with Leopold, and send you wherever you want to go, and prevent Leopold from taking the crown.” 

Dmitry laughs, “That’s quite an order.” He sombers, “You don’t have to do anything for me.” 

“I want to,” Anya says, scooting closer to him. “I think we’ve done enough to mess up your life.” 

It’s true and not true all at once. 

He leans in and kisses her, and it feels like the beginning of a goodbye.


	9. Chapter 8

Anya manages to slip into her home again, without much fanfare. After she had dismissed Vlad from Dmitry’s apartment, she half expected him and Lily waiting at the door to confront her on her reckless behavior. Instead it’s just eerily quiet. It would concern her more, if she didn’t already have more to concern herself with. 

She manages a quick shower, letting her hair air dry as she wears a dress that’s somewhere between her normal style and what’s required of her by her grandmother. She applies makeup, trying to cover up any marks Dmitry had seared into her skin. 

“Anya,” comes a voice from behind her as she’s at her vanity. Lily’s reflection is in the mirror behind her. “I’ve failed you in the art of covering hickies.” 

Anya sighs, as she sits in a chair and Lily takes over the make up for her. “All these lessons over the past few years, and yet I still know nothing.” 

“You are a late bloomer,” Lily corrects, removing Anya’s botched attempt at cover up. “I wanted to teach you all this fun stuff when you were a teenager, but instead you kept your nose in a book.” 

“I thought books covered everything,” Anya tells her. “They left out make up tips and what to do when you find out you’re secretly a Princess.” 

Well some books tried to cover that but they were all very romantic and fictional. None of them explored the crushing anxiety and overwhelming weight of responsibility that came with it. 

“So who does this set of lips belong to?” Lily asks, a little too casually. 

“Who is Vlad?” Anya counters. 

Lily’s hand falters as she is applying concealer, and she moves to apply remover to that mistake. “That’s a very common Russian name, Nastya.” 

“So is Dmitry,” she tells her. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” 

“Negotiating already?” Lily evades before setting down the supplies and sitting on the edge of Anya’s bed. “Why are you asking about Vlad?”

“I ran into him and he knew who I was,” this is technically the truth. 

“Just an old boyfriend,” Lily dismisses. “Dmitry is the name of Leopold’s choice for your throne.” 

Is it really her throne?

“You told just some random boyfriend the great imperial secret?” Anya asks her, ignoring Lily’s comment. 

“He broke my heart, Anastasia,” Lily says softly before straightening her back. “Enough about my mistakes, let’s talk about yours.” 

She’s not positive it’s a mistake. Clumsily done and bumbling, but she can’t bring herself to regret it. 

“I wanted to know what Leopold was up to,” Anya says. “I’m entrusted to eventually take over this country, but no one tells me anything.”

“Your grandmother loves you,” Lily reminds her. 

“And I love my grandmother,” Anya tells her, leaving the rest unsaid. 

Lily nods, and doesn’t pursue the matter. “What is Leopold up to?” 

“Trying to get Nana to name him as her successor by showing her a worse option and forcing her to choose him,” Anya says. 

“Of all the hare brained schemes…” Lily shakes her head. “And where does your Dmitry fit in with all of this?”

Anya can’t help but roll her eyes, “He’s not my Dmitry.”

Though he certainly felt that way. Some things were not meant for keeping. 

“Oh Anastasia, you’re not supposed to make my mistakes,” Lily tells her. “But where does Dmitry fit into all of this?” 

So she explains to her the blackmail and illegal nature of his current residency. 

“That’s an easy fix,” Lily tells. “Well, I mean if you’re us it is.” 

“He didn’t know I was Anastasia,” Anya tells her. 

Lily reaches out and presses a hand against Anya’s cheek, “Oh, darling. Let me take care of this, your grandmother wants to see you.” 

“What for?” 

Though her heart beats fast in her chest because she already knows the answer. 

“I think she wants to announce you soon,” Lily answers. 

“How soon?” 

“I think tomorrow,” she says, then lightly shoves at Anya. “Go find out. I’ll take care of this Dmitry problem.”

Anya winces at hearing referred to as a problem. 

“Can I know when everything is ready?” She asks. “I’d like to say goodbye.” 

Lily’s looking at her with an expression she can’t quite interpret. But she nods. 

“Of course,” she says finally. 

Anya leans over and kisses her on the cheek before disappearing from the room and heading to her grandmother’s. 

-

Dmitry isn’t expecting Anya’s call that came that morning. Saying everything was set for him to legally be free of Russia and off to live his own life. 

His life doesn’t feel much like his own anymore. 

She asks if she can stop by that afternoon. Later he hears the Queen has an important announcement to make. He can guess what it is in one. 

Anya shows up in a red and gold gown, looking far more like a princess and a future queen than he could ever imagine. Then again it’s difficult to imagine her anything other than his favorite version of her- hair mussed from his hands, lips swollen from his, dressed casually and looking more like a girl of his dreams than a girl on a pedestal. Her smile wobbles when she sees him, and she’s in front of him before he can even prepare for her to be near. 

She hands him over an envelope, “This is yours. Free of strings, a ticket out of here and proper exit papers.” 

“I don’t know if I know how to do things the legal way,” he jokes, opening the envelope. It’s hard to believe these are real. 

“This will be an excellent experiment in finding out,” she tells him softly. 

Dmitry looks through the envelope before pulling out the plane ticket. “Paris?”

She shrugs, “I didn’t know where you wanted to go.” 

He used to think he had an idea of where he wanted to go, back when he still lived in Russia. All the places to escape to. The better lives he could live if only he could just get out. He can’t think of a single one of those places now, his imagination dulled. 

“It’ll do,” he says, putting the envelope back together, and sliding it into his back pocket. 

“You’ll fall in love with Paris when you get there,” Anya promises, and he doubts it. He’s not the type of person to fall in love twice in his lifetime. “I promise.” 

“Well if her Highness says so,” he says, it’s meant to be light and he’s not certain he manages it. 

“Stop,” she rolls her eyes. “I’m Anya to you.” 

“Anya,” he repeats, he settles his hands on her waist, constricted and made impossibly small by her gown. “I think I’d ruin your makeup if I gave you a kiss goodbye.”

Anya grabs the lapels of his jacket and drags him down for a kiss anyway. They part and she pulls him in again. 

“You’re really bad at saying goodbye,” he breathes when they part again. 

“You’re worse,” she tells him. “It was good knowing you, Dmitry Sudayev.” 

He steps away from her, takes her hair and kisses her hand. “You will be a wonderful Queen, Anya Malesky-Malevitch.”

“You should go to the Pont Alexandre III bridge when you’re in Paris,” she tells him in a rush of words. “It was my favorite spot to go as a child. Lily used to bring me all the time, long before I knew it was my ancestors.” 

Dmitry’s not certain if he wants to go anywhere that reminds him of her, but he nods anyway. 

“I should go,” she says, looking over her shoulder before at him again. 

“Me too,” he says, patting the pocket where the envelope is now stashed. “Got a ride to catch.”

Anya nods and then disappears from his view. He was wrong before. 

Now this definitely feels like a goodbye.


	10. Chapter 9

There’s so many people already arrived, Anya spies them behind the curtain and door separating her room from the main room. Her chest feels tight, and she feels a little out of body, the surrealness of the moment hitting her like a ton of bricks. After tonight she will be Anastasia Romanova, Princess. No more Anya, no more anonymity. She takes a deep breath. She hasn’t felt like this since Lily confessed who Anya really was on her eighteenth birthday.

“Anastasia.” 

She starts, not expecting her grandmother until right before her big speech. “Nana.” 

Marie puts her hands on Anya’s shoulders. “You look so much like your mother tonight.” She smiles, tearily. “And your eyes are a reflection of your father’s.” Anya was a living mosaic of dead people.

“I wish I had known them,” she says, never knowing what to say when people compare her to those she does not remember. “I mean, remembered them.” 

Her grandmother squeezes her shoulders before releasing them, “Your spirit is purely yours, however, and always has been.” 

Usually when people were talking about her spirit it was not necessarily complimentary. 

“I know I haven’t been the easiest Princess to train,” she apologizes. She knows she’s learned and developed over time, and improved. Anya still feels like a failure whenever she thinks about having to lead people.

“Never mind that,” Marie tells her, and leads her over to a couch. “Do you know why we worked so hard to hide and keep you safe all these years, Anastasia?”

“Yes,” Anya says, not fully understanding why this was a question. It had been drilled into her since her eighteenth birthday. 

“And why is that?” 

She blinks, “Because I’m a Romanov heir.” 

“If that’s your answer,” Marie says, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “Then I have completely failed you as a grandmother.” An automatic denial is on her lips but her grandmother continues. “You’ve been kept safe this entire time because you are, first and foremost, my granddaughter and I love you very much.” 

She didn’t much see the difference between being a Romanov heir and Marie’s granddaughter. 

“And I love you,” she returns. “Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Because you’re unhappy,” Marie squeezes her hand again, preventing her from responding. “You are a gift, and you don’t get to be alive just to be miserable.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I’ve never asked you what you want.” 

“I want to make you happy,” Anya tells her, honestly. 

“That’s not the right answer,” Marie tells her. “What makes you happy, Anya?” 

She meets her grandmother’s eyes at the use of her nickname. Marie has never called her that before. 

Anya hasn’t thought about what makes her happy in quite some time. And what makes her happy is her grandmother, Lily, her friendship with Katya and most of all lips brushing hers, strong hands holding her waist. 

“You were never meant to lead when you were born,” Marie tells her. It feels like a betrayal, like her grandmother is seeing now she’s incapable of being queen. “If it’s not the path you want to choose, you don’t have to.” Then, softer. “You would be an intelligent and compassionate Queen, but if your heart isn’t in it it’s not fair to you or the people here.”

Anya stands up, needing to move. The skirts of her gown are heavy on her. “I don’t want to disappoint you.” 

Marie stands up, putting her hands on her shoulders, “You could never disappoint me, my darling.” 

She just nods in response. There’s a lot to think about. 

-

A little over a week in Paris and it all still felt so strange. Dmitry has spent so much of his life now trying to escape Russia, he never thought much of what would happen when he is finally clear of the danger. He didn’t know the language at all. He’d spent hours on the phone with Vlad attempting to learn it.

Vlad is an impatient teacher, not understanding what’s so difficult to make the jump from Russian to French, as though they weren’t vastly different languages with different rules and words. Finally, Vlad had said to immerse himself in the culture and the rest he could pick up along the way. 

Dmitry doesn’t know a lot but he’s certain that you can not learn an entire new language through osmosis. 

Maybe he won’t even stay here. This was just the destination station to get out of the trouble he had been in, but it didn’t need to be his final stop. 

He’s at the Pont Alexandre III bridge, and he can feel a weight around his ankle, keeping him in Paris. 

How proud his father would be, him finally becoming the romantic daydreamer of his ancestors, staying in one place awaiting a girl that never comes to him. His father wouldn’t be a fan of Anya’s ancestors or position in life, but he’d love the reckless romanticism of it all. 

Reckless is the best way to describe what his relationship to Anya was, even before he discovered she was a dead heiress. 

He wonders how her ball went, the public’s reaction. He’s all but blocked the news from his phone and Vlad politely skirts the issue when they talk. Vlad would much rather update him on his progress with Lily anyway. (He’s made little to no progress, but getting out of Russia has turned Vlad’s anxiety into blind optimism.)

But mostly he tries not to think of Anastasia at all. 

Not even when he leans against the bridge, looking out at the skyline, trying to conjure anything close to the feeling he would get when looking out at the sky in St Petersburg, the sun bright and blinding conjuring up a strawberry blonde making his way towards him. 

Great, Dmitry has reached the see her everywhere he looks portion of post relationship grief. He’s not even certain it qualifies as a break up. 

His imagination must be in hyperdrive because she looks more and more like Anya the closer she gets instead of less. Then she’s on him, and his hands are on her hips by instinct as her legs wrap around his waist and his mouth opens under hers. 

“You kiss very well for a mirage,” he tells her when she pulls away. Dmitry isn’t certain what question he wants to ask her first. “How did you find me?” 

Anya pushes his hair back with her hand, “I’ve come here every day for the past few days hoping you’d show up.” 

“Really?”

She laughs and pushes on his forehead, “No, I just got here and missed this spot. Seeing you is kismet.”

Anya’s wearing leggings and a university sweatshirt. Comfortable but not very regal. 

He has an uneasy feeling about her being here. 

“Shouldn’t you be having a coronation or something fancy like that?” Dmitry asks her carefully. He should probably set her down and sit down and have a proper conversation. 

She drops down to the ground easily. 

“I was never revealed to be alive,” she tells him. She doesn’t seem to be all that surprised that he’s not up to date with news from her grandmother’s country. “I choose not to.” 

“Did you give up the crown for me?” He winces as he says it. 

“Daft idiot,” she says affectionately. “I gave up the crown for myself. It was never for me.” 

He can’t quite believe she’s here or in his arms. “And your grandmother?” 

“Is in deep diplomatic talks with several other leaders about the future,” she tells him. “Officially I am a second cousin once removed to the Romanovs and a distinguished guest of the Queen’s when I go to visit.” 

“And that’s what you want?” 

It doesn’t quite make sense to him, no matter how much he doesn’t believe in the system himself, that she would be here standing on this bridge with him instead of at her grandmother’s palace. 

“Yes,” her answer is firm and not up for discussion. “Are you no longer interested in me now that I’m not a Princess?”

Dmitry loops an arm around her waist and pulls her closer to him, “I want you in any and every form you come in, Anya Malevsky-Malevitch.” 

“Good,” Anya says, interlocking her fingers with his against her waist and giving a gentle tug. “Then I believe you have a hotel room you can show me.” 

He leans down to kiss her, still not quite believing she’s real and not really caring if she’s not. With her by his side everything falls into place and Paris suddenly feels like home.


	11. Epilogue

_Four years later..._

“It seems cruel,” Anya remarks one night, as she’s preparing for the new school week. “They’re so young and have to call me Maîtresse Malevsky-Malevitch.” She closes her laptop so she’s actually looking at Dmitry. This is one of his favorite versions of her- hair messy, glasses crooked on her face, wearing a stolen shirt of his. “Actually they call me Maîtresse M. No, Maîtresse Mmmmm because they don’t want the second M to go unrecognized.”

Anya teaches 10ème at a school just outside of Paris. When deciding what she wanted to do once she took Queen off the table, she found she was still meant for a leadership of sorts. 

“I suppose going by Maîtresse Romanova is out of the question,” he says, resting his hands on her knees. 

She laughs, “God can you imagine the questions the parents would have?”

“You’re a woman of too many last names,” Dmitry tells her, leaning forward to kiss her. “What about Maîtresse Sudayeva?” 

Her fingers had been playing the hair at the nape of his neck and they still, “What?” 

He hadn’t intended to ask her this way, but it slipped out. 

“Hold on,” he tells her, getting up off the couch to go to the closet. He reaches into the pocket of a jacket of his that she hates and pulls out a box. 

“You’ve kept my engagement ring in that ugly thing?” She asks. 

Well, yes he had to keep it somewhere she wouldn’t find it. And he knew she wouldn’t steal or touch this jacket even if there was nothing else involved. 

Dmitry arches an eyebrow, “Is it your engagement ring yet?” 

“Dima!” She protests and takes a decorative pillow off the couch and throws it in his general direction. 

“Is that a no?” He teases and she might kill him. 

“It is now,” she grounds out, but grabs him by the shirt to pull him back over to her. 

“Very well,” he braces himself above her and lifts his hand up to toss the ring box across the room, but she reaches up and grabs his hand before he can. “Yes?”

Anya’s going to have to come up with a more appropriate story to tell her grandmother how she was proposed to instead ‘pinned down to the couch’. 

“Anya,” he leans down and kisses her, and her heart skips a beat as he starts talking again. “Will you marry me?” 

“Yes,” she breathes, the ring sliding on her finger. It registers she never actually saw the ring, but she also doesn’t need to. She kisses him. “If only for the sake of the children.” 

He laughs against her lips. “I’d planned to do this in a more romantic way, but then couldn’t wait.” 

“I’m supposed to be the impatient one,” she chides. Her fingers resting against the nape of his neck. “But if my grandmother asks, this definitely happened at the Alexander Bridge.” 

“Most definitely,” Dmitry readily agrees. “Did you want a big proposal?” 

God, no. Being the center of attention in public never suited her, and was one of the dozens of reasons why she shouldn’t be her grandmother’s heir. 

Her grandmother has slowly been transitioning the governmental power over to the new structure over the past few years and with every step Anya can feel a weight being lifted off her chest. 

“Nope,” she tells him. “Just need you.” 

Anya has all the confidence in the world that in this apartment, with her career and with the weight of this ring on her finger she’s made the right choice in her life.


End file.
